Read the Article @ Forbes Magazine

In a recent interview with Richard Marker of NYU’s Academy for Grantmaking and Funder Education, we discussed lessons that every funder must internalize, challenges and opportunities facing today’s donor community, and much more.

Richard Marker is co-principal of Wise Philanthropy™, a firm that includes: Marker Goldsmith Philanthropy Advisors, The Wise Philanthropy Institute, and Green Strides Consulting.

Richard Marker, an internationally known expert on philanthropy is the Founder of NYU’s Academy for Grantmaking and Funder Education. The Academy is the oldest and most comprehensive university program teaching funders and philanthropists in the United States. In February 2007, he was recognized with the NYU Excellence in Teaching Award.

Rahim Kanani: As the founder of and senior fellow at NYU’s Academy for Grantmaking and Funder Education, what motivated you to launch such an endeavor in partnership with NYU?

Richard Marker: When I first became EVP of the Bronfman Foundation of the Seagram Company, I approached colleagues for mentoring and advice. The most common answer back then was “you’ve met one foundation, you’ve met one foundation.” The longer I was in the field, the more I became convinced that this was a bit arrogant and self-indulgent. [Fortunately, it is a mantra heard less often these days.]

12 years ago, while I was still in that position, I was asked to teach one of the first courses in NYU’s new Center for Philanthropy. The number of funders who enrolled in that first course was so large that it became clear that I was not the only one who felt the need for better education. When Seagram and its foundation closed a year later, I surveyed the players in the field at that time – among them: The Council on Foundations, the Association of Small Foundations, the Forum of Regional Associations, many large and small foundations around the United States, and individual funders. What emerged was a consensus on the “core competencies of grantmaking” – the underlying educational philosophy of what became the Academy. To put it simply, I wanted people to be taught what no one taught me!

Over the years since, funders, trustees, and foundation professionals from around the world have chosen to come to our short-term programs, the longest of which is a full week. We are particularly pleased that we have now moved beyond offering programs only to those very early in their funding experience to more advanced level week-long programs for more senior funders.

Rahim Kanani: As you survey the landscape of global philanthropy today, what are some of the trends grant-makers and grant-recipients should pay particular attention to?

Richard Marker: It would be tempting to list some of the cutting edge approaches such as impact investing, responsive philanthropy, global challenges, technology innovation, and the Giving Pledge. They are important and we do teach these subjects. But in my experience, it is the basics which foster good and thoughtful grantmaking. Some of those basics are:

• Avoid fads. While it is crucial to be aware of trends and emerging approaches, not all new approaches have proven themselves. Nor, more importantly, are they appropriate for every funder.
• Be humble. As funders we must always remember that we are funding the future which, by definition, is uncertain. And grantseekers too are advised to be realistic about what they hope to accomplish.
• Be thoughtful about the role of private philanthropy. At this time, there are tremendous pressures on private philanthropy to replace what government cannot or won’t do. Leaving aside the question of whether there are sufficient resources to do so, a key question is: Is it private philanthropy’s role to do that or is it the role of private philanthropy to be society’s risk capital?
• Be very focused on how to align your interests with your resources. Because so much information is available to everyone, and funders are so aware of international, national, regional, and local needs, it can be overwhelming. All can be justifiably funded, but being aware of what you want to accomplish with your funding can help you use your resources, no matter how large or small, most effectively.
• Fund for success. The challenge for funders is not primarily to see how efficient their grantmaking can be nor to see if they can persuade a grantee to accept less. At the end, both the funder and the grantee want a project or organization to achieve its desired goals. Funders should fund so that they play a key role in helping that happen. Failure can happen, but it shouldn’t be because the funder didn’t provide the support – financial or otherwise – which gave a project its best shot.
• Evaluation. Understand when or even if to evaluate – and which methodologies will give constructive information for the funder or the grantee. “Metrics” sounds desirable – everyone hopes to demonstrate that funding is well spent. But “not everything that can be counted is worth knowing, and not everything worth knowing can be counted.”





Rahim Kanani: Having come in contact with countless donors over the years, what are some of the key challenges or concerns they express to you while enrolled in the Academy?



Richard Marker: We hear the same thing from funders whether they are clients of our advisory firm or enrollees at courses at the Academy. Many will tell us “this is harder than I thought it would be.” Many have accumulated a lot of information, informally or at conferences or in family or board meetings, and are trying to make sense of it all. Many have struggled with the social pressures or the abundance of requests. Many have discovered underlying tensions within families or among trustees.



The Academy doesn’t necessarily teach philanthropy and grantmaking better than can be learned elsewhere. Its value added is that it presents material in a sequential and systematic way which helps contextualize the challenges which all funders face. Often, one of the most useful take-aways for our participants is the realization that issues such as ethics, choosing strategies, relations with grantees, internal decision making, internal disagreements, and challenges of policy setting are generic challenges and not unique to their own situation.



All funders struggle with the delicate issue of power, and setting appropriate expectations of the relationship with their grantees. As foundations mature beyond the time of the founder, the interpretation of donor intent always looms large. Family funders, more often than not, are confronted with questions of succession or intergenerational understanding. And in the current environment, many are trying to determine if their foundation or fund should be spent-down or exist into the future.



Rahim Kanani: How does the Academy deal with those concerns, and how do you measure your own success in terms of knowledge-retention?



Richard Marker: Philanthropy is one of those areas where experience matters – a lot. We have found that the best educators are those who have both breadth and depth in the field. We are fortunate in New York to be able to call upon an extraordinary faculty of practitioners who have both deep experience as funders and proven educational skills. Moreover, our “students” are sitting with other funders, so that there is also a good deal of peer learning.



The courses and the program at the Academy continue to evolve. Evaluations help us learn what has been successful, what new information we need to provide, and what faculty are most effective. And whenever we consider adding new offerings, we consult extensively with our “alumni” and others in the field. Furthermore, we are now able to customize coursework to be held anywhere, and not just in New York City.



One measure of our impact is that a high percentage of our attendees are referred by past participants. Moreover, it was our past participants who pushed us to develop more advanced level course work.



Finally, we make sure that the faculty are well aware of how their own expertise fits with the remainder of the curriculum so that knowledge can be built upon knowledge.



Rahim Kanani: If you were to advise high-net worth individuals beginning to enter the philanthropic space, what are some of the key questions, challenges or opportunities you would want them to think about?



Richard Marker: No one has enough money to fund everything. One of the hardest things is to learn how to say “no”. But, if it is hard to say “no” graciously, it is even harder to say “yes” wisely.



Therefore, spend time understanding your own, your family’s, and your board’s culture. Often there can be agreement on priorities and even focus, but there may be very different styles of how to get there. Without that awareness, those differences can get in the way.



Be willing to learn from others and from your own experiences. It is okay to make changes along the way, and it is very okay to experiment.



There is more than one right way to be an outstanding grantmaker whose giving makes a difference. Just because another funder chooses a funding path doesn’t mean it is right for you.



Don’t be too risk averse, and be willing to make mistakes.



It is a rare privilege and blessing to be able to give so that others can work to improve the world, and always remember who has which role. Funders enable others to do what matters. Those who do the work we fund should be ennobled as well as enabled by our support.



- Rahim Kanani, Forbes Magazine

Read the article @ The Durango Herald

Patients must not allow themselves to be put off when they hurt, and medical practitioners must learn to listen to their complaints.

Vicki Whiting and her son Kevin, who turns 18 years old today, tell their story with In Pain We Trust, published by Blooming Twig Books.

Kevin was the victim of a rare, congenital affliction, Wilkes Syndrome, which occurs when the superior mesenteric artery lies on top of the small intestine instead of behind it. The results can be a flattening of the intestine and the blockage of food and bodily liquids.

Vicki Whiting, a business professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, was reared in Durango and is a graduate of Durango High School. She is the daughter of Reg and Bev Graham of Durango and the sister of former City Councilor Scott Graham.

“Doctors are well-intentioned, but they’re trapped in a system that doesn’t allow them to take time with patients,” said Vicki Whiting last week from Utah in a telephone interview. “On one occasion, a specialist spent six minutes with Kevin.”

In early 2007, Kevin, then 13, began to exhibit symptoms that were written off as the flu. But by September he was in pain, which at times was unmanageable, his mother said.

“They didn’t believe me,” Kevin said in a telephone call. “I knew my body and they didn’t.”

A feeding tube was inserted into Kevin’s abdomen beyond the blockage to keep him alive. But he continued to lose weight, and over time dropped from 90 to 63 pounds.

The family physician, Dr. Brian Rush, sent Kevin to specialists who diagnosed anorexia and put Kevin on antidepressents and antianxiety medication, which pushed him to the brink of suicide.

“We went to Australia at the end of the year because we’d heard about medicines that might help Kevin,” Whiting said. “The trip also was to get away from the predetermined notion that he was suffering from anorexia.”

Back in the United States, Kevin attended school irregularly and was hospitalized three times with pain so severe that morphine didn’t totally override it, Vicki Whiting said.

A re-examination led to a correct diagnosis of Kevin’s ailment, and he had an operation in September 2008 in which surgeons severed an intestine and put it in front of the mesenteric artery.

Intestinal damage, however, required Kevin to be fed by a catheter for seven months although he began to take food by mouth. In the ensuing months he grew nine inches and put 40 pounds on his frame.

In spite of sporadic seat time at school over two years, tutoring and summer classes will allow Kevin to graduate this year with his peers at Park City (Utah) High School. He wants to study at Pepperdine College and become a pediatric surgeon.

Shelly Braun, who teaches medical anthropology at Westminster College, participates in the Utah Health Policy Project, a nonprofit that tackles problems of rising health-care costs and the uninsured.

The delivery of medical treatment must be patient-oriented, she said in a telephone conversation.

“We need to improve clinical medical care,” Braun said. “Doctors don’t put listening to patients at the top of the list. One side effect of electronic systems is that doctors will be looking at a computer for medical records while talking to a patient.”

Patients become identified by an impersonal medical condition rather than as a person, Braun said. The extra work doctors must do in this computer age results in errors, less care for patients and higher costs.

Vicki Whiting recalled that in Australia, a gastroenterologist spent 45 minutes with Kevin and then ran the case before a board of six colleagues. The total cost: $40.

Rush, the Whiting family doctor, agrees that changes are needed in the delivery of health care in various areas.

The majority of doctors would like to spend more time with patients, he said by telephone. But their ministerial duties and time alloted to individual patients – dictated by large hospitals – preclude long consultations.

But it’s not unusual that diagnoses aren’t made instantly, he said.

“No matter how skilled the diagnostician, sometimes it takes a couple rounds to come up with the answer,” Rush said.

The medical community has paid attention to In Pain We Trust, Whiting said. She and Kevin told their story to 200 Hospital Corporation of America executives on Thursday in Salt Lake City and are scheduled to speak in April at the American Hospital Association conference in Austin, Texas.

The book is a good way to share Kevin’s story and examine drawbacks in how medicine is practiced, Whiting said.

“It was painful to relive the experiences when we were writing, but it’s important to get doctors to listen to patients,” Whiting said.

“Doctors are trapped in a system that takes time away from their patients. They’re not allowed to be doctors.”

- Dale Rodebaugh, The Durango Herald

Read the article @ The Salt Lake Tribune

Patients must not allow themselves to be put off when they hurt, and medical practitioners must learn to listen to their complaints.

Hobbled by doctors who seemed unable to diagnose the rare intestinal disorder that wracked her 14-year-old son’s body with constant pain, Vicki Whiting never thought about documenting her experience in a book.

When her son Kevin finally recovered, Whiting knew she had to write it all down. She also knew she should include accounts from her son, who suffered years of pain so intense he ripped up phone books for distraction.

Published last month, the mother-son book, In Pain We Trust : A Conversation Between Mother and Son on the Journey from Sickness to Health, has since been adopted by Westminster College’s nursing school as part of its curriculum. Nursing programs at universities nationwide have also expressed interest in using the book to underline the need for “patient-centered care” in the nation’s health-care system . . . .

. . . Kevin, now 17, was cured by surgery that untangled an artery from his intestines that prevented him from absorbing nutrients. Writing the book with his mother, he said, was “the opposite of therapeutic.” Instead, it was written to help other families struggling through ailments that often elude doctors, leading patients to take the wheel from medical professionals until effective treatment is found.

Even so, the book reveals ways in which Kevin and his mother coped through years of misery and uncertainty, from the summer of 2007 when his symptoms surfaced, to fall 2009 when his agony began to subside. He gave his pain a name, “Burnie,” and even an identity as something more akin to a “horror show” as opposed to real life. “Imagining the pain as a person helped me bring myself away from it,” Kevin said . . . .

. . . For Vicki Whiting, the ordeal of watching her child suffer taught her the importance of drawing those terms. Also, the realization that, like the origin of illness, the forces that drive people are never fully known until investigated and described in words.

“Whatever we see in another person is just a small portion of what’s revealed,” Whiting said. “We all have our stories.”

- Ben Fulton, The Salt Lake Tribune

See the interview @ KSL TV Online

Taking on the health care system is not what a Park City mother and son ever imagined. But that’s what happened when, as a young teenager, Kevin Whiting experienced severe pain that was a medical mystery.

Doctor visit after doctor visit, the mystery illness was constantly misdiagnosed. The wrong medication pushed Kevin to wanting to end his life, and the entire family to the edge. What they learned led to the book titled “In Pain We Trust.”

In March 2007, Kevin Whiting accompanied his mother, Vicki, a Westminster College professor, to California for her interview famed Coach John Wooden. That’s when his intestinal pain began.

“On the plane ride home from that, it just became excruciating,” Kevin said. “I was screaming in the back of the plane. I felt horrible for the other passengers.”

Many doctor visits and hospital stays followed. Only the act of shredding phone books distracted him from the pain. Morphine did not help.

“Unbeknownst to us, a doctor had used shorthand to describe his appearance as anorexic. However, because it was in his medical charts, it was interpreted in each subsequent visit to be anorexia nervosa,” Vicki said.

That, they say, labeled Kevin and prevented a correct diagnosis for a year and half.

While all this was going on, Kevin was over 5 feet tall and weighed only 63 pounds — the pain prevented him from eating much. One doctor prescribed an antidepressant, and Kevin became suicidal.

What is … Wilkie’s syndrome?

Wilkie’s syndrome, known primarily as Superior Mesenteric Artery (SMA) syndrome, is a digestive system disorder which occurs when the superior mesenteric artery obstructs the duodenum (first portion of the small intestine) as it crosses over it.

“I remember sitting on the bed and just asking him if he couldn’t live for himself, maybe he could live for us?” Vicki said.

The family traveled to Australia and found patient-centered health care. Naps with kangaroos brought back Kevin’s will to live.

They returned with hope. One of his father’s colleagues then discovered Wilkie’s syndrome, a blockage in the intestines, and surgery followed.

His health has improved, and he has put on a little weight, but he still has to watch what he eats and sees doctors on a regular basis for follow-ups.

Kevin is now a Park City High School senior and he volunteers at the new hospital there.

“I’ve decided I want to become a surgeon when I get older, so I want to go through med school and try and make a difference in the health care system,” he said.

They share their story to create awareness. “We’re able to maybe make some good come out of a truly heartbreaking and horrific chapter in our lives,” Vicki said.

The Whitings say they’ve heard from three sets of parents who credit this book with saving their children’s lives.

Westminster’s School of Nursing is already using the book, and Intermountain Healthcare and Hospital Corporation of America have sponsored discussions about patient-centered care because of it.

- Carole Mikita, KSL-TV

Hear the interview @ KCPW Online

When a child gets sick, parents want answers. In Vicki Whiting’s case, she wanted to know why her son Kevin suffered from severe stomach aches and kept losing weight. The answer kept coming back anorexia, but she knew that wasn’t the truth. Vicki and Kevin Whiting wrote about their journey through the health care maze in a new memoir, “In Pain We Trust” and today they join us to talk about the long road back to health.

- City Views, KCPW Radio

Read the review @ SeattlePI.com

Every once in a while I read a book that motivates me to action. The new one by financial advisor and eldercare expert Harold L. Lustig did just that. In his curiously titled Naked in the Nursing Home: The Woman’s Guide to Paying for Long-Term Care without Going Broke, Lustig introduces a topic to which, admittedly, I hadn’t previously given much thought. But now I definitely will.

Here’s why. Our odds of needing long-term care are greater than one in two at age 65, much higher than other risks we routinely insure, such as automobiles and houses. And long-term care is not just a topic for older people. In fact, over 40 percent of people who need such care are under age 65. Lustig points out that Michael J. Fox was only 30 when he noticed a twitch in his finger that was later diagnosed as Parkinson’s. Christopher Reeve was 43 when he had his tragic riding accident that left him a quadriplegic.

For women, in particular, long-term care is a nightmare, because wives and daughters not only bear most of the caregiving burden for their aging loved ones, but they are far more likely than men to end up in a nursing home.

If getting injured or ill enough to require long-term care doesn’t scare you, the cost of paying for it will. I checked the estimated annual cost of long-term care for my state, New York, and it ranges from about $45,000 to $119,000 a year, depending on the type of care I’d require or desire. If, like me, you’re one of the proverbial “99 percent,” it’s doubtful that you can afford that price tag. And unless you have a wealthy partner or a gaggle of wealthy and generous adult children, chances are your loved ones can’t either.

But don’t despair just yet. Lustig has helped many people avoid what he calls a “family financial crisis” brought on by long-term care. The key is to plan for it so you can pay for it – without jeopardizing your assets, such as your home, or your children’s financial futures.

What about insurance, you ask? Like tropical storm Irene’s victims in upstate New York, who thought their homeowners insurance covered flood damage (and discovered, too late, that it didn’t in most cases), you may be under the impression that long-term care is covered by your health insurance or by Medicare – the free healthcare Americans get after age 65. Wrong!

What about Medicaid, you ask, the government-funded insurance for low-income Americans? Well, Lustig likens Medicaid to a minefield. To get Medicaid to pay for long-term care, you have to qualify financially, and if you happen make one of the 15 classic Medicaid mistakes he warns readers to avoid, you will lose your eligibility. His advice? Consult a qualified elder law attorney who is experienced in Medicaid and current on all its most recent tricks and traps, who can assess your finances and help lead you through the Medicaid maze.

Okay, so are there other alternatives? Yes! If you’re a veteran or the spouse or surviving spouse of a veteran who served in an armed conflict, you could be in luck. That option is called Aid & Attendance, and it’s an excellent, free long-term care benefit funded by the Veterans Administration. Lustig calls it the best-kept secret in long-term care.

If that option isn’t available, there are a number of great long-term care insurance options. The good news is that LTC insurance is cheaper the younger you buy it. If you’re under 60 and you’re healthy, you may feel like running, not walking, to your local insurance agent after you read Lustig’s book.

LTC insurance has its own “gotchas,” but if you’re serious about wanting to protect yourself and your family against future financial ruin, in the event that you get injured or are diagnosed with a serious medical condition, LTC insurance offers the best protection and peace of mind. The section devoted to LTC insurance provides an overview of four classes of LTC insurance, discusses how it will affect your taxes, and includes frequently asked questions.

Lustig then presents case studies of three hypothetical families to demonstrate how they might use all of this information to maximize their options. He also has a chapter on the warning signs of elder financial abuse and how to prevent it, and gives us tips for finding trustworthy professionals who can help, such as geriatric care managers, financial advisors, and elder law attorneys.

In the back of the book, Lustig includes pages of valuable resources for patients, seniors, and their caregivers and loved ones, as well as a glossary of perplexing terms found in insurance, medical, or legal documents.

For boomer women worried about caring for spouses, elderly parents, and eventually, themselves, this comprehensive resource offers guidance and information they won’t find anywhere else. Don’t sit around worrying about outliving your assets in some run-down long-term care facility. Read this book so you’ll be motivated to do some smart planning instead.

- Gail Bradney, SeattlePI.com